E3 2010: Brink Preview

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Multiplayer fans have plenty to look forward to in Splash Damage's latest.

By Nate Ahearn

There were a lot of questions surrounding Brink up until a few months ago when Bethesda finally removed the veil from Splash Damage's latest foray into the first-person shooter arena. I saw the game a few weeks ago at Bethesda's pre-E3 event and came away quite sure that Brink would bring the firepower needed to satiate the seething multiplayer gamers of the world when it launches in the spring of 2011.

Brink takes place in 2044 AD on a city known as Ark. It's massive, it's floating and it's home to the two warring factions in the game: Security and Resistance. Security is the high-powered, tech-savvy repressive superpower and Resistance is the slightly more low-tech option (think the Empire and the Rebel Alliance from Star Wars). Yes, there are two full campaign modes to play through, each of which with its own unique storyline and cutscenes to flesh out characters and the back story of this floating megalopolis. The levels are all objective-based and present the player with different districts to explore, each with a new look and feel and, perhaps most impressively, each of which can be played in either single- or multiplayer mode. But that's where Brink takes a decidedly different turn from usual first-person shooter fare. See, rather than having to hop out of a single-player mode and into a separate multiplayer option, it's all seamlessly built into one experience. But we've detailed the design methodology the game before, so let's skip on ahead.

The experience points that you earn when playing alone also carry over to multiplayer where Brink will support up to 16 players and vice versa. It's that valuable XP that you'll use to buy items from the incredibly lengthy list of character customization options. There are standard options like changing the general body type and look of your character, but it gets a lot deeper when you think about the weapon add-ons that you can purchase for various portions of your gun and different unlockable abilities. You can buy things like ammo upgrades and new stocks, all of which change the look of your weapon as well as the way it functions.

Then there are the numerous abilities, one of which is known as combat intuition, a power that notifies you when someone is aiming at you. Another one switches the camera to a third-person perspective for when you're completing lengthy procedures like planting a bomb. It enables you to swing the camera around and see who's coming; a great defense mechanism.

As if that wasn't enough, Brink also tosses in separate classes to choose from, each of which has a distinctly different role on a team. Some are geared towards assault, others are more long-range fighters, while others, like the medic, are strictly for support. Each can be tuned through customization options to expand outside of their designated role, but you'll have the most success as a team if you play your part. On paper I'm sure it sounds like any other multiplayer customization you've seen in the past, but Brink sort of takes things to a whole other level.

Much of my first 15 minutes with the game was spent learning the objective targeting system and the SMART (Smooth Movement Across Random Terrain) mechanic that I'll get into in just a bit. The objective system in Brink is worth noting because it actually does take a bit of time to get it down. Since objectives can sometimes be completed at random, Splash Damage has been forced to build a tool that can be followed not only by the player, but by the AI as well. It took me some time to get used to the radial menu that they're using to target different objectives, but after awhile I seemed to ease into it.

The SMART control mechanic is another thing entirely. It's much simpler to explain in that all you do is hold down the sprint button and your character will instantly traverse any climbable or otherwise acrobatically-friendly object in a kind of Mirror's Edge sort of way. It seemed to work well for the most part and even added to the whole action movie vibe that the game exudes.

I had a lot of fun messing around with Brink for my short pre-E3 demo and will hopefully have time to stop by Bethesda's booth for a longer session with the game during the show. I think the customization options and the potential differentiation between players that it presents are really going to make Brink a beast all its own, much like Enemy Territories: Quake Wars (Splash Damage's most notable creation) was on the PC. Like any multiplayer-focused title, Brink is going to depend on a robust and relatively mature community to be able to be a lasting title on either Xbox Live or PlayStation Network. But with the amount of depth Bethesda's latest is looking to bring to the table, it's going to take something more than a 12-year old with psychotic tendencies to excel.

Brink is set to launch in the spring of 2011 on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. We'll have more information in the coming months, so keep a look out.